- Michelle Bachelet, the head of human rights at the United Nations, urged the Taliban to honor their commitment to respect the rights of women and girls.
- She said that the treatment of women, girls, and ethnic and religious minorities will draw a red line.
- The Taliban promised to take a different path from when they first ruled the country in the 1990s.
The head of human rights at the United Nations expressed serious concern over the situation in Afghanistan after the Taliban came to power on Tuesday, saying that their treatment of women would mark a “basic red line.”
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Michel Bachelet delivered a speech before the emergency meeting on Afghanistan, urging the Taliban to honor their commitments to respect the rights of women and girls, ethnic and religious minorities and avoid retaliation.
“Now the Taliban have a responsibility to turn these promises into reality,” she said.
“I strongly urge the Taliban to adopt responsive governance and human rights norms, and work to rebuild social cohesion and reconciliation, including respecting the rights of all people who have suffered in decades of conflict,” Bachelet told the Security Council.
“A basic red line will be the treatment of women and girls by the Taliban,” she said, urging “respect for their rights to freedom, freedom of movement, education, self-expression and employment.”
“In particular, ensuring girls’ access to quality secondary education will be an important indicator of the commitment to human rights.”
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Desperate effort
On Tuesday’s meeting, after the Taliban warned that the evacuation would only last another week, the U.S. military was making increasingly desperate efforts to airlift thousands of people out of Kabul.
Crowds continue to gather outside the airport, and many Afghans are afraid to face life under Taliban rule.
The militants have repeatedly promised to impose a different kind of rule on their brutal regime of the 1990s, which restricts women at home, prohibits most recreational activities, and punishments including stoning and public executions.
However, there are reports that Taliban fighters have gone door-to-door in recent days looking for opponents-including journalists, and their rebranding has been suspected.
Even before the Taliban took over, the United Nations stated that the number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan has increased dramatically in recent months.
Bachelet said her office had received credible reports of serious violations in places under the Taliban’s control, including summary executions, restrictions on women’s rights, preventing girls from going to school and recruiting child soldiers.
“Human rights violations undermine the legitimacy of the perpetrators, whether for the people, for regional and international institutions and other countries,” she warned.
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